Charles Fletcher (1892 – 1929) was born in Stroud. His father died in 1895 and he was brought up in Muller Orphanage in Bristol. As a teenager, he was sent to work on farms in the Forest including Longley and Trow Green where in 1911 he is recorded as living with the Teague family and working as a cowman. He joined the British Socialist Party in 1915. During the war, he moved to Chepstow and obtained work in the shipyards and latterly as a self-employed chimney sweep. In the early 1920s, he joined the Communist Party and then moved back to the Forest. In 1925, he was elected as Chairman of the Forest of Dean branch of the Miners’ Minority Movement. In 1926, he left the Communist Party and joined the Labour Party. He wrote articles on mining and industrial problems and was popular within the labour movement in the Forest and became a close friend of John Williams. He died aged 37 in 1929.
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